The PC multimedia processor bandwagon looks to have fizzled out before it managed to establish itself with the news yesterday that Chromatic Research Inc has halted the development of its Mpact processor, after only two years. Sunnyvale, California-based Chromatic said that it would not continue the development of its Mpact 3 chip, but was instead working on a new architecture that would simplify and open up the software environment, fit in with fast moving industry design cycles and speed up both performance and integration. There were no further details about its future project. The company’s chip partners included LG Semicon Co, SGS Thomson Microelectronics and Toshiba Corp. Chromatic first launched its mPact processor back in 1996 (CI No 3,009). The chip was designed to act as a co-processor solution for Intel-based PCs, with the aim of dramatically cutting the cost of PC multimedia systems, and was hailed as the first of a new generation of specialist chips. But the company used exotic VLIW very long instruction word and SIMD single instruction multiple data parallel techniques, making the chip hard to program. Most of Chromatic’s design wins, which included Compaq Computer Corp’s PC Theatre 9100 (CI No 3,291), were in the narrower area of Digital Video Disk processing. Other multimedia processors, such as Samsung Electronics Co’s Multimedia Signal Processing chip, have also been discontinued, while Philips Semiconductor Inc has moved away from the PC market to target video phones and high definition television with its TriMedia part (CI No 3,284). Chromatic, a venture capital company, is said to have secured new funding for the project.
